Paxxo of Malmo, Sweden has appointed Nisus Medical Limited as their official UK partner to offer the innovative Pactosafe® [why not PaxxoSafe?], a unique automatic heat-sealing unit designed for the safe handling of cytotoxic waste, hazardous waste and toxic laboratory waste.

Pactosafe® system and endless bag technology hermetically heat-seals clinical waste airtight for up to seven days. This protects staff and patients throughout the working environment by preventing the spread of odour, contamination and hazardous aerosols created by infectious and cytotoxic waste.

The video supports several pages of supporting information on the Nisus Medical website, describing the manifest simplicity of this innovative device. Proposed for infectious, odiferous, and other troublesome wastes including laboratory wastes, cytotoxics and continence wastes among others, some obvious questions spring immediately to mind.

Forefront among those questions is why? Odiferous wastes may be less of a problem is hermetically sealed, but the volume of incontinence waste in a busy geriatric ward of nursing home may surprise the operators. In practice, and supported by the use of paper bedpan liners and urinals, these would go don’t the sluice to foul sewer via a macerator/disinfector. This would be a much cheaper option, since the disposal cost of Pactosafe-bagged waste may be prohibitive especially if the waste is packaged in rigid bins as shown in the video.

With infectious waste, and that which is not categorised as infectious but is nonetheless teeming with microorganisms, there is a lack of evidence that the surrounding manifold and handles etc do not progressively become contaminated during use. That would be a particular concern with bloodstained or infectious wastes, and with cytotoxics. What happens when something jams in the Pactosafe? Hands and forearms may be exposed, during release of trapped items.

With adjustments to bag length required for different waste items, and periodic replacement of bag rolls, this seems to be a nice idea that carries an additional cost of materials and time. And time is an important issue on a busy ward. This seems far more time-consuming that the traditional open sack, despite all of its other faults and limitations.

Formal in-use study may answer these questions, and others, and may identify a place for this otherwise neat solution to a series of problems that have not yet been sufficiently thought through.

One to watch?

see also Innovations in waste sacks #2?